Category Archives: Gluten Free Cooking

What Did We Get? 28th December

Scarboreugh!

We hope your Christmas was jolly and filled with good times with friends and family. Unfortunately, ours didn’t turn out quite as planned this year.

A pre-Christmas trip over to York was enjoyed to meet up with the London Leckenbys. As expected, plenty of yummy food, drink and conversation. We’d chosen to head over by bus, but after waiting for half an hour at the end of our road the Coastliner hadn’t arrived, in fact we saw it coming into the Scarborough, an hour late, so we opted for the train instead, for an extra £30!

**Painting for the Leckenby flat in York of Lady Peckett’s Yard**

Back in Scarborough I just managed to get back to the house to see our veg box being delivered. Each year the Tree Top Press kids help deliver Christmas veg and poultry hoping for donations to their chosen charity, this year donations were going to the local branch of Parkinson’s UK. I just managed to catch them to add our donation to their collection tin. Mick picked up our duck from the butchers, now all we needed was for the rest of the shopping to arrive Christmas Eve and a slight niggle in the back of my throat to be banished.

**York Station selfie, the last time I went outside**

Christmas Eve, I felt really quite ropey. Sausage rolls for lunch were made and eaten, by the end of the day a gammon joint and dauphinoise potatoes were cooked, but no prep for our Christmas Day feast was managed. Messages were sent to friends to see if Frank could join them, I really didn’t want to give Frank my lurgy. Thankfully space was found for him at a table and he suggested we postpone our festive meal. This was hardly surprising, it’ll mean he’ll get to have two Christmas dinners!

Father Christmas arrived, we’d been good. Lots of Dreamies, 15 pairs of socks between us, 2 chocolate oranges and some orange bites for Tilly, 4 M&S salted caramel millionaire bars and the usual scissors, post it notes (of the giant variety) and other bits and bobs.

Scrambled eggs and smoked salmon were enjoyed without the usual bucks fizz. Followed by presents. A goody bag from Hook Norton Brewery, a lovely weekend bag, new big thin mugs for Oleanna, a new outdoor sensor for the weather station (hopefully this one won’t end up in a CRT bin somewhere), a smart top I’d really wanted from Seasalt, new waterproof trousers, a very nice blue glass water jug, a carry bag for a water bottle, a Victron Energy IP65 SmartShunt 300A so that the bow thruster batteries can be monitored, an Ant Savage narrowboat t-shirt that looks a bit like Three Bridges, and a book on foraging weeds! Photos to follow if I can be bothered. A pretty good present haul. Thank you everyone.

Mid afternoon we enjoyed more of our Christmas Eve gammon, then some improvising was required for my birthday cake. In a drawer in the kitchen Mick had found some celebratory candles. These only lasted a short while before they extinguished themselves, even before being blown out! But one of the millionaire bars came in handy with the posh candle Mick had bought. Not quite the baked French cheesecake I’d planned, but at least I got to make a wish as I blew out the candle, I also got to eat the whole of the cake myself, so as not to share my germs with Mick!

Boxing Day. I was a touch concerned that should we leave the duck until I felt well enough to have Frank round it would have gone off, so I finished the Christmas Day prep, stuffing and gravy making and baked the cheesecake. Mid-afternoon 25 hours later than originally planned, we tucked into Christmas dinner. Mick said it was very nice, my taste buds had gone on strike so I couldn’t comment. No room for cake and in fact I seemed to take a downward turn in the evening and headed to bed early.

Yesterday we got chance to try the cake at last at lunch time. When in the oven I’d slightly panicked that the tin hadn’t been big enough for the mixture, but thankfully it had just risen up and not gone over the edges. I refrained from making raspberry coulis to go with it, even without it was very tasty, surprisingly considering it was made with sweetener rather than sugar so Frank could have some, at least I could taste it!

Hopefully in the next couple of days we’ll get Frank round for a dinner, pull some crackers and consume the nice wine he’d brought round in advance and help us finish off my cake. We’ve also still got tree presents to unwrap when he’s here.

So we got lots of nice things for Christmas and one lurgy! We’re at least a day behind ourselves, maybe we’ll catch up before the New Year and get to go for a walk, my first time outside the house in nearly a week!

Watching. 21st December

Overstay Approved. 29th September

Stoke Lock

Mick turned Oleanna’s engine on this morning, put her in gear, that same noise, vibration and grinding could still be heard, it was worse in reverse. He called Alastair in Goole, a chap who’s done work on Oleanna over the last few winters and sorted out our water pump a few years ago. He couldn’t hear at first, so Mick sent him a sound file of the engine running. Twenty minutes or so later he called back. From what Alastair could hear it sounded like the gear box or the drive plate was going. Best to get it seen sooner rather than later and the best thing to do would be to call RCR.

RCR were called, our location passed on and symptoms described along with the possible diagnosis. They’d call back when an engineer had been allocated to the job. When they called back the ETA for Kane, the engineer, was 2 hours.

Tilly came and went, I got on with some bits for panto. I needed a material to make a giant rose from. Someone had suggested plastizote, a foam that you can get in different thicknesses and colours. I’d looked it up a few weeks ago and having enough to make the rose would cost in the region of £120! Quite a lot on something that is just a nice thing to have, a bit of a tradition for Chippy. I looked round and spotted my yoga mat. If I can make a giant mug from yoga mats then I can make a giant rose from it too. I spent a while finding the cheapest thickest bright pink mats I could. Worked out I’d need just a bit more than one. Oh well at least they’d come in £100 cheaper than the plastizote. I next hunted round for some card to make smaller roses, hopefully I’ve selected two different shades.

Around 2pm Kane arrived. The engine board was lifted, engine put in gear. He checked all the simple things first, the engine mounts, they were okay. Then he started to listen closely, in gear, forwards and reverse, reverse was worse. His diagnosis, gear box or drive plate. He asked how old the engine was, drive plates tend to last about ten years and Oleanna’s engine may be getting close to that.

The office was called. They didn’t have the right drive plate in stock, it could be one of two. To get to the drive plate he’d need to take the gear box off, the engine would need supporting then whilst he removed the drive plate to see which one it is. This is likely to take around three hours, it would then leave us without a working engine to charge the batteries. It was decided to leave the engine as was, order in both possible drive plates and when they arrive an engineer would return to do the job, 3 hours to remove the drive plate, 3 hours to put a new one on and put the engine back together. Whilst we wait for it to arrive we will still be able to charge our batteries.

Kane checked that we were okay for supplies, our nearest shops maybe a couple of miles away, but we were fine having topped up in Nottingham a couple of days ago. The only thing we might need is water. Fortunately we are pretty close to two water points, unfortunately it would require us to move the boat by using the engine. Kane thought we should be okay to reach the tap in the lock cut, hopefully we’ll make it back too!

There is still a slight chance that the problem might be with the gear box instead.

I headed off for a walk, along the access road to the lock towards Stoke Bardolph. It’s 15 minutes to reach the main road from our mooring and a bus stop. I then checked Google maps to see if there was a different way back to Oleanna, there might be, paths not shown on OS maps, but obvious on Google. I found the nearest post box and walked back along the side of drainage ditches on good paths, then kept to the side of a field on a well worn path that brought me back to the river through the wood by the lock.

**Is that a stone cat sat up by the weather vane?**

Mick went on line to request an overstay, our mooring here is officially 2 days. CRT have a new system where you fill out a form on line, Mick clicked the map for our location as best he could and pretty quickly our overstay request was granted. An email popping into the inbox to confirm it. Here’s hoping we don’t still need to be here in two weeks time, Kane hoped someone would be back with us before the end of the week. Fingers and paws crossed.

6pm arrived. Where was Tilly? She likes it here and must have got busy! I called and called. I walked up and down, thankfully no-one around to hear me this time. I was just about to give up when I could hear her bell approaching. ‘What did I say about coming when called?!!!‘ Yes but that doesn’t count when I’ve found some friends!

Chicken and leek mac cheese tonight.

0 locks, 0 miles, 1 grinding engine, 2 engineers, 1 one the phone, 1 in person, 2 drive plates on order, 1 poorly boat, 1 distracted cat, 1 Production Manager catching up, 2 yoga mats, 2 reams card, 2 bus stops, 1 post box, 46 minutes brisk walking, 1 Mrs Tilly stamp … you can’t give it two stamps of approval!

Tweeting Birdies. 26th September

Trent Junction

The early morning mist clung to the river early on. As the clock ticked closer to breakfast time the mist increased and the view of the cooling towers almost disappeared before the sun took over and burnt its way through.

An email from the printers arrived, the final adjustment corrected. At last everything was ready to be printed and the big red button could be pressed on the copy machine. It feels like it’s been going on forever! Maybe it has!!

Tilly was given shore leave, rules recited and the reasons I call her home reinforced today!

Part way through the morning a shiny boat came past from Redhill. NB Hereward was on its way from being repainted by Tom at Gibson and Kentwright. Very nice looking boat. She’d gone back in the water a couple of days ago. I wonder if the owners had much to clean up, I’ve heard that the grit from being grit blasted gets everywhere inside despite all openings being covered up.

Time to think about illustrations for the Separate Doors book. I’d had an idea whilst on the train and squiggled it down. But now I realised it was actually two ideas rolled into one. I ended up with three versions sketched out to send to Vanessa for her to point me in the right direction for the style of the book.

This afternoon’s walk had me walking up the Erewash towpath, further than I’ve been of late. At the very tree covered bridge into Sheet Stores I could just make out the stern of NB Bargus, it looked like Kat was delivering to a moored boat in the basin.

After we’d seen her in Burton her stern gear had developed quite a big problem and was letting in water when the prop turned. Brian on NB Elk had breasted the boats together and taken her down the Trent, up the first lock on the Erewash to Sheet Stores where NB Bargus was lifted out to await new parts, some welding etc. Whilst she was out of the water Kat blacked her and put the base coats on the port cabin side to paint out the old livery and get her looking more like a Jules Fuels boat. Bargus was now back in the water and preparing to head back to the Trent and Mersey. I’d seen that Kat had planned her next coal run and sent her a message asking for a top up, but after hearing nothing back we’d assumed she was already on her way up stream, but we’d been wrong. Later in the day we heard from her and yes she still had supplies on board and would see us in the morning.

I walked through the same boring estate I’d walked the other day, it wasn’t any more interesting walking in the opposite direction. Across and under the many railway lines. At one level crossing I had to wait for a train to pass and then almost as soon as I’d crossed the lights started to flash again, only a couple of minutes between trains.

I opted for a different path back to the river, this one I thought might be more interesting as it was between two lakes. However, the lake to the right was totally invisible because of trees and the one to the left I only caught a little glimpse of the water park before brown fencing cut off my view totally! Back to the river bank with its high foliage so no view there either. The best part of today’s walk was listening to the birds and spotting them all on the pylon and cables, singing their hearts out.

Back at Oleanna Tilly was hanging about, well you told me I had to come back when told to! That is when I noticed she was limping again. It’s not been noticeable for quite a few days, but was definitely back now. We’ll see what some sofa and bed rest does for a day or two, then see if we need to pay a visit to those people who wear green!

**Chilli Turkey Sausage and Squash Risotto**

Lurking in the bottom of the freezer had been four chilli turkey sausages. I decided to see what they would be like in a risotto with some roast squash. It turned out to be really rather nice. Recipe will be found here.

0 locks, 0 miles, 1 misty start, 1 big PRINT button pressed (I hope), 3 squiggles, 1 invoice, 1 coal boat, 3 railway crossings, 1 boring walk, 72 brisk minutes, 1 out of 4, 4 turkey sausages, 0.5 squash, 2 plates of yummy food, 1 chink of glasses for William.

Dashing. 11th September

Lowes Bridge 15

Tilly requested to go out this morning, before any shore leave was to be granted we got her to walk up and down the boat to see how that limp was doing. Heading towards the stern and Mick, there was a slight spring in her step. But when called back to me by the bathroom the limp was there! Was this a sympathy limp? All that walking backwards and forwards would give anyone a limp! Shore leave was granted and we got on with the morning.

Supplies are running low, a supermarket delivery might be possible to the lock, but it would be a long walk back to Oleanna as we don’t really want to move up just yet. Only one thing for it, head to Aldi a miles walk away for a top up shop of fresh things. Taking the Brompton we walked towards the lock. Dark skies behind us, which way were the clouds moving?

The Derby Canal branches off to the north of the Trent and Mersey above Swarkstone Lock, the first stretch up to a bridge still in water and used for moorings. A path runs alongside what was the canal, now overgrown, the by wash at the lock flowing like there was no drought! Under the A50, cars and lorries hammering their way along to Stoke. We now walked through a modern housing estate, round a roundabout to a crossing. A big clap of thunder, we weren’t going to get away with staying dry for long. As soon as the green man showed, I picked up my pace and Mick got on the Brompton, we managed to get under the roof of Aldi just as it started to hammer it down. We’d got here, but would we get back dry?

Two bags of shopping then quite a wait to see if it would stop raining. Maybe it was lighter rain now, we couldn’t stand here all day! We got part way back through the housing estate when fork lightening could be seen up ahead, it didn’t take long for the rumble of thunder to join it. We picked up our pace again dashing for the A50 and some shelter. Of course this was the time when Frank called to report about his latest visit to the hospital. Not totally drenched we waited out the worst of the rain and I chatted about drugs with Frank, I’m sure others have done similar under this bridge!

**How many drug deals has this face witnessed?**

Back at Oleanna we were damp around the edges, the stove was lit and we started to dry off. A suggestion came from the IT tech support at Chippy to log out of Microsoft 365 in Word, then log back in again. This didn’t work. But with the help from my IT department and logging out of Microsoft fully, then back in again I got back into the system, just one file I couldn’t access which might not have been there, I’d managed to get sent to me a few days ago so that didn’t matter.

The afternoon was spent finishing off touching up images for print and rationalising the paint call with what the theatre already has. Then it was time to do some very grown up paperwork. Our Lasting Power of Attorney forms. Our stupid printer doesn’t like the paper we’ve currently got to do double sided printing, so with both of us and both Health and Wealth forms filled out on line we used getting on for 100 sheets of paper. Four stacks of paper now wait to be signed and witnessed before heading off in the post.

Tonight we had toad in the hole with chicken sausages. Maybe I didn’t use enough oil in the tin and the sausages didn’t add any fat to the cooking equation, so the Yorkshire pudding didn’t rise. Oh well, at least the mushroom and pea gravy made up for it.

0 locks, 0 miles, 1 wave to Nichola and Andy, 2 bags of shopping, 1 soggy bag of oats, 2 soggy boaters, 1 semi limping cat, 88 plus sheets of paper, 4 stacks, 1 envelope, 1 fat pudding, 6 chicken sausages.

Whitless Sunday Pie. 7th August

Retford Cemetery to after Main Street Winding Hole

We moved down from the cemetery this morning through West Retford Lock and pulled in just above Retford Town Lock on a few bollards that are there. A boat had been moored along here yesterday, but was nowhere to be seen today. Time to do a top up shop, mostly for ingredients to make a pie today.

I headed to Aldi whilst Mick went to Boots to pick up a prescription. On finding no stewing steak in Aldi I gave Mick a call, the butchers in town came up trumps with a pound of steak and a kidney, if I was going to make a pie it might as well have everything in it. No gluten free beer though but Asda came up trumps with a bottle of GF Speckled Hen.

Lunch was had then we set off. Down our last narrow lock for a bit, hopefully we’ll get to the narrow locks on the Trent and Mersey before too long, fingers crossed there’s still sufficient water! Today we’d see CRT notices saying that as of tomorrow at 10am more locks around Birmingham would be closing due to low water levels. It looks like there are just two routes up into Birmingham left open now, Stourbridge and Lapworth.

I walked on ahead windlass and key in hand. The next lock would be Whit Sunday Pie Lock, the first broad lock, it was half full so required a top up, Oleanna wasn’t too far behind me so the lock was just ready when Mick arrived.

I wonder which Cill line is correct? Once down I handed my windlass over to Mick as it wouldn’t be needed again today and I didn’t fancy carrying it for three miles.

The hedgerows are filled with blackberries, plums, damsons and sloes. Sadly the only damsons and plums that were ripe were windfalls, not many more were within arms reach in the trees. I opted to leave them where they were.

The long line of mooring bollards at Clarborough were chocka block. Five boats nose to tail, two facing towards the Trent, three away. When Mick came past he noted that access to the winding hole had been restricted, good job he didn’t want to turn.

At Narrow Bridge I went up onto the track to see if there were any other items of interest at the campsite. A bus stop and more mirrors and the overture of The Magic Flute could be heard coming from one of the barns near the entrance. I suspect it’s an interesting place to camp.

The next 2 day mooring was available, but it’s proximity to the road a no no for Tilly so I carried on walking to an M on Waterway Routes. I was surprised that no other boat was pulled up here. Views over the fields on both sides of the cut, a wide towpath recently mown, the edge trimmed as well so the grass cutters know it as a mooring.

I had time for a quick chat with Frank, read some blogs whilst I waited for Oleanna to arrive, I’d beaten her by 25 minutes. When she did pull up we found it a little hard to find enough depth, but made do with a foot gap between us and the armco, no need for fenders today!

Oleanna was secured, what3words noted, shore leave rules recited, the doors opened for an afternoon of shore leave. Tilly wasn’t impressed as this was timed perfectly with a cloud burst over head. The stern was rejected, I’d try the bow. I hopped off and as soon as my paws touched the grass they sprang straight back onto the boat. How dare they tie up a wetter than wet outside!

I browned the steak for the pie, mixing two recipes I’d found, steak and ale, steak and kidney pie. The filling needing to simmer for quite sometime. I then started to make the pastry. However the ambient temperature, a wasp interrupting matters and the new wind up scales all conspired against me keeping the butter cold! The scales went from suggesting I was short by 15 grams of butter to being 90grams short! As I lifted the cubes out from the flour I knew I was going to end up in a seriously sticky mess, no rubbing in resembling breadcrumbs here! The bowl went in the fridge to cool down. Then once the eggs were added the mixture, resembling cake mixture was put in the freezer for an hour, hoping this would help. Thankfully gluten free pastry is more forgiving than that with gluten and you can work it more, but it was a bit weird rolling out partly frozen pastry!

Pie filled and baked, it turned out pretty well considering the afternoon had continued to be problematic. As I cut the pie into portions I realised I’d forgotten to add the chestnut mushrooms! It was very tasty none the less. We of course had to follow it with a slice of cake, all accompanied by a glass of wine, so today the diet has gone out of the window completely! Sod it!!

3 locks, 5 miles, 1 bottle beer, 1 drugs run, 2 drugs on order, 450grams steak, 1 kidney, 1 bag carrots, 2 baking potatoes, 2 splashes of Hendersons, 90 minutes brisk walking, 1 big pan of meatyness, 1 bowl of melted gooeyness, 1 rather good pie for Whit Sunday Pie Lock.

https://what3words.com/sudden.joints.kidney

Two Rendez Vous. 6th August

Ranby Visitor Mooring to Retford Cemetery

A sweep through and some baking to use up some of the blackberries picked yesterday, a recipe I found on line, it suggested if your fruit was really sweet then to reduce the amount of sugar, which I did, all helping to not be too naughty, it also had no fat in it so that was a bonus too. We waited until it was out of the oven and cooling before setting off, me walking ahead.

Oleanna managed to get round the steep bend where we’d come aground a few days ago with ease, maybe the weed boat we’d seen earlier this morning had got rid of the problem for us, hopefully we’d have little or no problem with weed today.

This stretch runs very close to the A1 for quite a distance, you’d never know it apart from the traffic noise. One house has some lovely sunflowers outside, dark red as well as some very heavy headed standard yellow ones. Interesting weathered tree stumps , a creature I didn’t manage to catch on my camera swimming across the cut and a flash of electric blue from a kingfisher, who allowed me to take a silhouetted photo of it before darting onwards again.

At Forest Top Lock there was a boat moored just off the top lock landing and the bottom gates were both wide open. Below sat a CRT tug and skip boat the three crew standing around. I wasn’t wanting to speed them up as I was the advance party, there was plenty of time for them to finish their chat and come up the lock whilst Mick arrived. These volunteers have been tasked to move several skip boats up towards Turnerwood for when the canal shuts to replace the lock gates on the leaky lock. The chap at the helm kept saying that they’d leave the lock set for us, that was obvious. Then he was a bit concerned when Mick pulled Oleanna into the lock landing and roped her up so she’d not get in their way, yes we were going to use the lock straight away so he needn’t have worried.

Above Forest Middle Top Lock we pulled in at the water point to fill up, deal with rubbish and yellow water. We also made use of the time to have some lunch. A phone call came through from our first visitors of the day, a rather garbled message, but they were on their way and would find us along our route somewhere. A boat was now heading to come up the lock, it was already in their favour so we helped them up, then made use of the water to go down, also helping another boat up. They were both going to stop to top up with water before carrying on to make the assisted passage at Worksop tomorrow morning.

Surprisingly Forest Middle Bottom Lock was empty when I arrived, soon filled and Oleanna was just descending when a dayglow cyclist pulled up alongside and asked how he should put his bike onboard. This was one of our visitors, James, Jane his wife soon followed. I’ve known James since my teenage years in York, he and Jane live near Sheffield and we call them the ‘Mad Cyclists’. Shortly before Mick and I set off on our boating journey eleven years ago, they set off on their own adventure to cycle the full length of South America in nine months.

Once down the lock we could load their bikes onboard, one in the welldeck the other on the roof. Extra care would be needed whilst passing under trees now, can’t have Titanium Gravel bikes ending up in the Chesterfield Canal.

There was time to catch up on news of all the Hall family, a wedding this coming weekend. Hear about the planning of their next cycling trip, three months over Christmas. Only one more lock however to have assistance with before we made our way on towards Retford. We opted to moor a little before the more central moorings by the hospital and cemetery. Train times were checked, bikes removed from their positions on the boat and chained to a post so that we could have a cuppa inside with a slice of Blackberry and Almond cake whilst Tilly inspected the towpath. It’s a bit rubbish here I can’t find my way through the green mesh stuff!

**Jane and James ready to head off back to Sheffield on the train**

Time for the cyclists to pedal off into the distance to catch their train. Our location was now sent off to more visitors another rendez vous to be had. Time to put on long trousers and freshen up, encourage Tilly home for dingding.

An hour later Cath and Marc arrived at the hatch. Cath is a Stage Manager who worked on several shows with me at the SJT and The Orange Tree many moons ago. Marc is a wildlife photographer who is currently building up his stock for Christmas fairs.

Recently they have got into watching Canal Boat Diaries and been on hire boats, so of course they wanted a guided tour of Oleanna. It wasn’t hard to impress them, modern live aboard boats are very different to those they’ve been on before.

We headed into town to find somewhere to eat. The Brew Shed had come highly recommended by Dave at the boat club the other week. It certainly smelt good, but sadly wouldn’t have a table free until much later on. So we opted to walk to the market square where there is a Lounge. These have great menus for everyone. A whole sheet of gluten free options and quite a choice for Vegans. We settled down and caught up on news of friends as we’ve not seen each other for around eight years. Mick and I had burgers which were extreamly nice and Marc tucked into a large breakfast, which would keep anyone going for several days.

A very lovely evening after a very good afternoon. We waved goodbye to Cath and Marc, popped into Aldi for a pint of milk before returning to Oleanna for a second glass of wine.

4 locks, 5 miles, 1 full water tank, 3 moving boats, 1 load washing, 2 cyclists, 1 tight medium pair, 0.5 blackberry almond cake devoured, 2 pedestrians, 2 guided tours, 2 burgers, 1 giant breakfast, 1 nasi goreng, 3 beers, 1 wine, 1 very lovely day.

https://what3words.com/moves.switch.else

Beaut! 9th July

Doncaster Visitor Moorings

It’s always the same. You set an alarm for early o’clock and just can’t get to sleep. Then add into the mix Doncaster Minster being so close and it’s bells marking EVERY quarter of an hour ALL night! Not the best night’s sleep.

I managed 7 minutes brisk walk to the station and was ready and waiting for my first train of the day to Birmingham New Street, next one on to Banbury. I was glad of reserved seats on both trains and opted to keep the model on my knee, it was safer there than anywhere else.

At Banbury Station I had to use telepathy to find my lift. Firstly the drop off zone has been moved due to building works and then it was play hunt the producer. I’d not met Rachel the new producer at Chippy before today, luckily I’d told her to look out for my big blue ikea bag.

At the theatre the green room was filled with a welcoming committee, which was very nice. They were actually waiting for me to cut the chocolate and hazelnut gf cake Paul had made.

**A Bake Off topping but was there a missing raspberry?**

Plenty of time to set up and enjoy a slice of cake before the final model meeting started. A new lighting designer joined over the Internet, marketing, development, technicians and Gemma the Production Manager made for quite an audience, but thankfully I didn’t get Designers wobble doing scene changes in the model.

We worked our way through the show, questions and explanations as we went. At the end there were lots of lovely comments, the best was from John the Director saying he thought it’s my ‘best design yet!’

After lunch Gemma and I hid ourselves away in a dressing room to see if we could afford to build it. Three quotes had come in for the build and some figures for the printing. At the moment it seems we can afford it without having to cut elements and Gemma had taken on board my suggestions about painting and parts of the build. I’ll be kept occupied, but hopefully not as busy as in previous years.

**Waiting in Banbury for my direct train home**

I got a lift back to the station with Paul, his wife Helen and Jack their son. Mick had a pizza ready to go in the oven for when I got home along with a glass of wine as my goal of leaving the majority of the model box with other people had come off. A very good day all round.

**A small box of props and a couple of things and my technical drawings**

Now if you fancy coming to see the show get your tickets booked before the end of this month as the prices have been held at last year’s prices.

Meanwhile in Doncaster Mick has spent time in the engine bay, planning the installation of some Victron bits which will make the charging of our bully boy batteries more efficient.

Oleanna was passed by Dutch Barge Pheonix owners of NB Honky Tonk whom we’d met at Lemonroyd a month ago. Hopefully we’ll get chance to say hello if our paths cross in the next few days.

0 locks, 0 miles, 3 trains, 1 big thumbs up, 1 addition to make, 1 alteration to make, 1 Le to add, 1 yummy cake, 1 bip of a horn, 2 gizmos added, 1 bored cat, 2nd blog post written on my phone on the train home, 1 designer thinking she deserves a glass of wine when she gets home!

1 designer got her glass of wine, followed by a second one.

What Cake?! 20th May

Aire and Calder Navigation

The butter had been left out of the fridge overnight, but still wasn’t suitablely soft for baking. I sliced it thinly, put it in a mixing bowl, then moved it out onto the hatch at the stern, here it got suitably soft very quickly as the sun got going. Sugar, eggs, lemon zest then lots of ground almonds added, it was baked, browning a little too quickly but covered in foil it did it’s thing. Lemon juice added once out of the oven, it was left to cool in the tin. The easiest bit of secret baking I’ve done in years, helped enormously that Mick was in Scarborough.

The roofers started to tidy up, moving all the old slates off the roof by hand, their bucket and rope in the van which was still being mended. Later in the day I was sent a photo with fresh new tiles covering part of the roof, there had been three of them today so they were cracking on. Good job as rain is forecast for the weekend.

Here on Oleanna, I waited to hear back from John in Chippy. No news came through all day. Oh well, I decided to do a mock up of the cyc , this is a cloth that hangs up stage, normally covering where we store all the props and bits of scenery by the back wall. Once I’d put things together I realised that my horizon was far too high, I’ll need to add more sky, but at least it will give an idea in the white card model.

Up to Lidl for some asparagus for this evenings birthday barbecue. The roofers having finished for the day around 3pm meant Mick could be on a train back for the evening arriving at 6pm. On my walk back down the hill to the canal there was a lot of stationary traffic. The cause, a Luton van that had got itself squished by the curve of the railway bridge! I really hoped this wouldn’t cause problems with the trains and delay Mick’s return.

More stoppage notices regarding low levels on the canals. The Ripon Canal which is fed by the River Skell will be closing at the top end, this will hopefully help maintain levels at the top and without any rainfall the EA are likely to ask C&RT to stop abstraction from the river, so we suspect the canal will soon be closed from Oxclose Lock. We’d been wanting to head up the River Ouse and onto the Ripon Canal, but that is now likely to be another destination we’re unable to reach this year.

The very sunny afternoon sadly clouded over, but when Mick arrived back at Oleanna we decided to still go ahead with our planned birthday barbecue, the first barbecue of the year. The charcoal was lit and left to get itself ready as the presents came out.

Last week Mick had been so excited at the arrival of a parcel for me at the house that I decided to wrap up the contents and give them to him. Well what would he do with 100 10A scalpel blades, but give them to me! Next followed a familiar shaped present, this was a chocolate orange which has now been gifted at Christmas, Easter and now birthday. The proper presents followed. A Curlew t-shirt from Tilly and a smart new fleece from me, both went down well.

Asparagus for starters, followed by pork steaks and veg/halloumi kebabs, washed down with a couple of glasses of wine each whilst sat out on the towpath, jumpers required but not too chilly thankfully.

Once tidied up we retired indoors for cake and blowing out of candles. This took several attempts from Mick, it must be his great age! We’ve quite a bit left over to keep us going for a few more days.

A later start to his birthday celebrations than normal, but we got there in the end.

0 locks, 0 miles, 2 trains, 0.3 roof re-tiled, 1000 old tiles carried down ladders, 1000 new tiles carried up, 1 sheet of insulation board to find a use for, 1 cyc, 1 ECG, 3.11 miles walked, 22 minutes briskly, 12 candles, 1 bored cat, 15 spears asparagus, 2 pork steaks, 4 kebabs, 4 glasses wine, 1 Happy Birthday to Mick.

6000! 11th May

Aire and Calder Navigation

The wrong type of rain, moving kitchens, the one perfect rose, 4 clicks and it being a 2 slice Sunday were all subjects discussed this morning. I’d already had two slices of toast with my breakfast, bacon a serious treat this year nestled next to them.

The Geraghty zoom had also been a try out to check if online meetings this week would be any good. Well I think we got away with it, but that wasn’t really good enough, especially when the IT department would be over an hour away by train! The other factor for moving was the large hole in the bank close by our stern and an inquisitive cat! We most probably moor close to such things all the time, but just knowing of its existence made us want to move up some.

Mick checked the EE coverage, not too far away it improved, he went for a bike ride, there was space, we’d move up.

I was about to push off when Mick reminded me we needed to deal with the yellow water tank today. Once that was done we waited for an ex-hire boat to come past, we’d be sharing the next lock with them. As we pootled along Oleanna’s engine hours clicked over to 6000!

The lady hopped off with windlass in hand, she won’t be needing that until they get to Leeds, she came back for a Key of Power. I chatted to the chap, the usual things, where have you come from, where you going?

They’d been in Sheffield for 18 months, been to York and got stuck in the floods (that must have been a few months ago) and were now aiming for Manchester. They weren’t aware of the immanent closure of the Leeds Liverpool Canal, currently planned to close on the 27th May, lock flights padlocked and locks ashed up. He thought if they were already on the canal then CRT would let them off the other end. Well, no, closed, means closed!

In the lock he was asking Mick how long it would take to get to the bottom of Wigan, 50 hours to my reckoning. So it’s doable if you don’t get stuck on the bottom or have to go to work four days a week as the chap does! We suggested he signs up for CRT stoppage notices.

We topped up the water tank and pootled on a little further before winding and mooring up. Plenty to keep Tilly occupied here so long as there’s not too many woofers and humans wanting to give me a stroke. Sorry to the passers-by who instead of a head nudge got a very aggressive HISS!

Summer clothes were dug out from under the bed, serious winter jumpers and jeans that no longer fit me got tucked away. The drawing board came out from it’s slot, not sure I’ll get to use it in the next few days, but you never know and it’s hard for one person to get out.

Some more reference pictures were put together. Art Nouveau, roses, tents.

Mick headed off mid afternoon to catch the train back to Scarborough, roofing works starting in the morning.

To use up some butter beans left over from a warm chicken salad we had the other day I put together a Yaxni. I’d not heard of it before, a Greek potato stew. My version will definitely be made again and I’ve got enough left over for another day. Click the photo for the recipe.

1 lock, 6000 engine hours, 1 boat now on a mission, 1 boat settling down for a while to work, 1 cat, 82 trees, 288 pictures, 1 improved internet, 1 worse TV signal, 1 PA check in, 1 teams meeting to Scarborough, 1000 paces hobbled, 0 brisk minutes, 2 legs having a rest, pair 67 cast on.

Narrowboat Oleanna

Travels of Narrowboat Oleanna